"Do you speak Avornan?" Grus asked. Reluctantly, Bori-Bars nodded. The king said, "You make a dangerous foe."
"So do you, Your Majesty." The Menteshe scowled. "I hoped you would be the one with ropes." He raised his hands a little.
"Life doesn't always give us what we hope," Grus said, and Bori-Bars nodded again. Leaning forward in the saddle, Grus asked, "Who is your master?"
"At the moment, you are," Bori-Bars answered sourly.
Grus bowed in the saddle. "Well, so I am. But who gave you the orders to attack my army?"
"No one did," Bori-Bars said. "My scouts spotted your men. It looked to be a good place to hit you. It was a good place to hit you. But you turned out to be sneakier than I expected. You fought that battle the way one of my folk might. Who would have looked for such a thing from an Avornan?"
"For which I thank you." Grus bowed in the saddle again. "But for whom did you command that army? Who is your superior?"
"I reckon no man my superior." Pride rang in Bori-Bars' voice.
"You are being difficult." Grus exhaled in exasperation. "I will point out to you – once – that you are in a poor position to be difficult. Now then – does that army you commanded owe allegiance to Korkut, or to Sanjar, or to the Banished One?"
"We all owe allegiance to the Fallen Star. Him I will reckon my superior." Bori-Bars still sounded proud. Grus did not understand that and did not particularly want to understand it – it struck him as being proud one was a slave – but he had also seen it from other Menteshe.
It was one more thing he would have to think about another time. "Do you also follow Korkut, or do you also follow Sanjar?"
"I follow the Fallen Star," Bori-Bars said.
"And no one else?" Grus asked. The captured general repeated himself. "If that's yes, then I know of Menteshe who don't like it," Grus told him. "I know of Menteshe who are working against the sorcery that makes it so. I know of Menteshe who want to follow their own will first, and who don't care to be sent halfway to thralldom."
That got through to Bori-Bars. His eyes flashed. "You know of my folk who would turn against the Fallen Star? I say you lie."
"I say you don't know what you're talking about," Grus replied. "I could name names. They would be names you know. But what would be the point? The names will do you no good, not after I send you back to Avornis. You have many, many more questions to answer." He nodded to the men who'd captured Bori-Bars. "Take him away. Put him in the compound with the rest of the captured Menteshe officers, but don't let him speak to them or they to him."
"Yes, Your Majesty," they chorused.
Away went the Menteshe general. Grus summoned the Avornan officer in charge of that compound. He was a stolid, middle-aged fellow named Lagopus. He blinked several times when Grus told him, "I want you to let Bori-Bars escape tonight."
"Your Majesty?" Lagopus dug a finger in his ear, as though wondering if he could have heard right.
"Let him escape. Don't be obvious about it – don't let him know you're letting him – but do it," Grus said. "He knows some things now that will make the Menteshe quarrel among themselves, but only if he gets away. He's the sort who will be looking for a chance. Make sure you give him one."
"Yes, Your Majesty. Just as you say." Lagopus was nothing if not dutiful. He saluted and went back to that compound. He would do as Grus told him. Bori-Bars would get away. And then… they would see what they would see.
Princess Limosa curtsied to King Lanius when she came up to him in a palace hallway. The serving woman behind Limosa carried little Prince Marinus. "Hello, Your Majesty," Limosa said. "How are you today?"
"Pretty well, thanks," Lanius answered. "Yourself?"
"I'm fine," she said. "I'm very pleased you and the queen are going to have another baby." She really did sound as though she meant it. Maybe she was blind to the politics all around her. Or maybe she just thought that, with Prince Crex, the succession – at least if it passed through Lanius – was already assured.
"Thank you. So am I. Of course, Sosia will have to do the work," Lanius said.
Limosa laughed. "That's the truth!" she exclaimed. "I think women forget how hard it is after every birth. If they didn't, they wouldn't have more than one baby, and then where would we be?"
"Gone," Lanius said, which made Limosa laugh again. He walked past her and held out his arms. "Let me see Marinus."
The maidservant put the baby in his arms. Marinus stared up at him. The baby was at the age when he smiled at anything and everything. By the way he looked up at Lanius; the king made him the happiest baby in the world just by existing. His little pink hands reached out…
Lanius jerked his head back in a hurry. "Oh, no, you don't, you little rascal! You're not going to get a handful of my beard. My children have already done that, and I know how much it hurts." Everything he said around Limosa could turn awkward, even something as innocuous as that. She relished pain. Hastily, he went on, "I think he looks more like you than like Ortalis."
"Yes, I do, too," Limosa answered. If the other thought occurred to her, she gave no sign of it. She went on, "Ortalis isn't so sure. He thinks Marinus has his nose."
Lanius looked down. The baby's nose was the small, mostly shapeless blob common to about eight babies in ten. "Where's the rest of it, in that case?" the king inquired, which sent both Limosa and the serving woman into a fit of the giggles.
"I'll take him back if you like, Your Majesty," the woman said. He handed her Marinus. The baby's face clouded up. He started to cry. Lanius didn't think that was a testimony to his own personality. Marinus sounded fussy and cranky. The maidservant began rocking him in her arms. Sure enough, his eyelids started to sag. "I'll wait until he's sound asleep, then put him in his cradle," the woman told Limosa.
"That will be fine, Pica," Limosa said.
She and Lanius chatted. She did most of the chatting, as the king wasn't overburdened with small talk. He didn't mind; most people did more talking than he did. After a couple of minutes, Pica carried Marinus away. By then, the baby wouldn't have noticed anything short of the ceiling dropping on him.
A little while after that, Limosa said, "I do go on and on."
"No," Lanius said, which wasn't strictly true. In fact, she did go on and on, but he didn't mind. "It's very interesting." That was true – she picked up most gossip before it got to him.
"You're kind to say so." Limosa looked around. Lanius understood that glance, having used it a good many times himself – she was seeing whether any servants were close enough to overhear. Satisfied none was, she went on, "And you're kind for not thinking me – stranger than I am." Now her gaze went down to the mosaic tiles on the floor.
"Stranger than you are?" For a moment, Lanius was puzzled. In every way he could think of but one, Limosa was ordinary enough. When he remembered the exception, of course, it made up for a lot of the rest. He felt like looking down at the floor himself. "Oh. That."
"Yes. That." Limosa's chin lifted defiantly. "Well, you are, because you don't." She paused as though sorting through whether that was what she really meant. Lanius needed to do the same thing. They both decided at about the same time that she had gotten it right. Relief in her voice, she went on, "You don't act like you think I'm some sort of a monster or something."